1.Background Art
In recent years, the combining of information equipment and medical care IT technologies has been increasing. In other words, the coordination of information equipment and sensors which collect bio-information such as the condition of human saliva, pulse rate, etc, and the use of information equipment to refine data and provide services based upon such data can be predicted to become increasingly prosperous in the future.
However, the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law regulating the manufacturing, importation and sale of drugs and medical devices drives a wall between medical care and the use of devices to measure bio-information for healthcare purposes. In other words, in order to use bio-information measured by a device to make medical judgments, restrictions decree that the aforementioned device must receive authorization in accordance with the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law.
At present, it is typical for medical and health related equipment produced with authorization to be used at home or in a medical institution with measuring devices specialized for bio-information. In the future however, it is predictable that the implementation of such functions in portable terminals, or the cooperation between multiple measuring devices and information terminals will result in information terminals acquiring a variety of bio-information, and the provision of a diverse range of health related services. By providing portable terminals, for example portable information terminals with bio-information measuring functions, it will become possible to measure bio-information anywhere and at any time.
In this way, once it becomes possible to measure bio-information from devices which can be used in the home or at a medical institution, and also from devices which can be used anywhere, then demand will arise for a combining and displaying of measurement data received from a plurality of measuring devices so that a user may observe changes in bio-information. A method is shown in Patent Literature 1 wherein measurement data is received from a plurality of measurement devices then regulated by each measurement device, the changes in data then being displayed to a user.